Stuntman: Ignition Hollerin' Hands-on

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We take a look at the sequel to one of the first game's most memorable films.

By Chris Roper

Over the past month or so, we've taken a look at a number of the films present in Stuntman: Ignition, the follow-up to 2002's Stuntman on the PlayStation 2. The game is set to ship this August on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2, and this week we're back with the filming of another new movie.

The film we had a look at this week is entitled Whoopin' and a Hollerin' II, the sequel to the original Whoopin' and a Hollerin' from the first Stuntman that once again stars the good ol' Creek Boys. As was the case with the first film, it's essentially a take on the Dukes of Hazzard and has you performing a number of stunts in some back country small town. You'll be going in and out of barns, dodging through trees and, yes, your driver shouts "Yee haw!" a couple of times after hitting an especially big jump.

Explosions and fire!

The first of the film's two stunt scenes is called Grab 'n' Go and has you drive an armored car that's been stolen by bank robbers as you try to get away from the cops and the Creek Boys. It's the shortest stunt scene that we've played yet, which means it works as a nice test scenario for figuring out strategies to string together an entire level and nail a five-star rating.

The scene starts with you swiping a couple police cars and making a drift turn in the hulking truck to get past and through some big rigs. This opening is indicative of the rest of the scene as the entire level has you swiping police cars, cutting tight turns and dodging between 18 wheelers. There aren't any jumps to be found here, but you'll need to keep your foot slammed on the accelerator pretty much the entire time in order to hit all of the stunt spots. The end sees you race down an alley until you're side-swiped by a big rig, which would have ended up crashing dead into a wall had you not been there to break its momentum. Quite the humanists, these stuntmen.

The second scene, Ridge Runners Race, is much longer than Grab 'n' Go and may actually be the longest we've played yet. In it, you drive an old beat-up muscle car with the number 88 plastered on the side, bearing a very slight resemblance to the General Lee. During the scene you'll drive through a handful of barns, including launching out of the upper windows of a couple of them. You'll race through numerous sections of grass filled with trees that can help you string the level together, and even jump and leap over a bunch of metal poles being lifted in mid-air by a crane. Wooden fruit stands and moonshine stills are never safe here as your American classic shatters them to pieces again and again, and fences don't do well to stand in your way. It's a fun scene that's really nailed the feeling of Dukes of Haz- oops, we mean the original Whoopin' and a Hollerin'. Yeah.

Take to two wheels to impress the director.

One thing that's new to this build is that you can unlock a few rewards after each run. The first we unlocked on each scene is a color customizer that lets you swap out the base color of the vehicle to whatever you want. You can't change stickers or other designs, but it's a nice little feature nonetheless. Special stunt awards are given for mastering a certain section of each scene, and once you attain a four-star rating, you'll unlock a ghost run that shows one way to perform a five-star rating, helping you nail down those last couple tricky stunts.

Another thing that became much more apparent in this film is the civilian ragdoll effects. While in previous scenes we always saw people jump out of the way of our car, you're now able to collide straight into pedestrians, cops and even your own film crew at the start. The masochist in us couldn't stop laughing as these virtual peeps were dragged and shredded beneath our wheels. This doesn't earn you any points or awards, but it's damn funny.